and if you think barack obama and hillary clinton are political pioneers consider this victoria woodhall was the first woman to be nominated for president in 1872. her running mate, frederick douglass. m.g. lord as a journalist cultural critic and highly-regarded teacher in this professional writing program. for many years she was a syndicated political cartoonist and columnist based at newsday and is a regular contributor to "the new york times" book review its arts and leisure section and numerous other national outlets. she is the author of astroturf, the private life of rocket science a family memoir about cold war aerospace culture. she became a true literary celebrity after she wrote the groundbreaking forever unauthorized biography of a real doll. which examined how a fantastically sexual doll that was inspired by a jokey knickknack came to hold meaning for so many american girls pray she argues that barbie was invented by women to teach girls for better or worse what was expected of them and now she has turned her critics days to another curvy american icon in her new book "the a